I grew up with Star Trek... I sort of worship USS Enterprise. I was in love with most of it's characters. From the sexy, bald Captain Jean Luc Picard to Scotty. But above all, I was in love with Spock.

I still remember, I liked to make that 'V' sign he always made. Oh, how I always stuck in front of the telly, just to watch them.

Years passed, I was introduced (or rather, reintroduced) to Star Wars, fall in love with the chubby looks of Harry, Ron and Hermoine, blown away by the classics like Narnia and Lord of the Ring.. and I strayed away from Mr Spock.

Star Trek Nemesis was a bore, and I guess that made me strayed even more. Then Star Trek came along.... It is my birth month anyway.. I guess, I should try to watch it, though it will be years before Picard would helm the USS Enterprise. This is Captain James T Kirk's time. Who knows, I might forgive and forget, and fall in love again with Star Trek.... And I did just that!

Mr Spock, I just renewed my love to thee... and guess what, I watched Star Trek, twice today (Saturday)!

Happy Birthday to me... I bought myself these two 'jewels'...

It's not for celebration, but a rememberence of those who have died in their work and those who have parished in telling the world the brutal truth...

I was brought up by my late grandfather whom I fondly called 'Ayah' and by my 'Mak' who actually my maternal grandmother.

It was a simple kampung in Jasin, Melaka, which I called home for 15 years of my life. I was in the kampung when my Ayah passed on in Malacca general hospital in 1981.

BAck then I didn't actually understands what had happened, but when I saw the kain batik lepas, that people always use to cover the jenazah, I knew it that something wrong had happened.

Plus the silent tears my eldest brother shed, while we were in the hospital. Even after these years, almost 30 years, I can still remember my aunties cried out to us, while my grandmother and I made our way to the ward.

My Ayah, still in his prime, passed away due to titanus. And how Mak cried and cried. The only man who loved her so much and cared about her. The man who gave her all that 11 children and a meaningful life, died that somber afternoon.

Til this day, I missed Ayah so much. And after a while I just could't see myself living in the very house he built to shelter his family.

Amongst the memories of Ayah that I still remember, one in particular that etched forever at the back of my head. The one when Ayah come up with a rotan and chased us, his naughty grandchildren who went to the neighbour's house and messed around with the poor atuk's bunk of sands that he had taken from the river bank.

We were denied access to the house and have to go hungry as he had forbade my Mak to serve us food, to teach us the hardship of the neighbour has to put up with, the sand that was supposed to be sell off, but we kids had already messed up with.

I missed Ayah and now Mak is frail and started to lose many of her memories too.